The present disclosure is generally in the field of implantable medical devices, and more particularly relates to drug-delivery devices with a drug-permeable component.
Implantable medical devices and methods are known for targeted, e.g., local or regional, drug delivery in order to avoid the problems associated with systemic drug delivery. Local delivery of drug to some tissue sites, however, has room for improvement, particularly with respect to extended drug delivery with minimally invasive devices and methods with minimum patient discomfort from the presence of the device itself. The problem is particularly acute for certain drugs, e.g., those having relatively low water solubility, and/or for certain therapies in which the drug needs to be controllably released at therapeutic levels over an extended periods of several days or weeks, while keeping the devices sufficiently small to avoid unnecessary discomfort and pain during and following deployment of the device into patient.
U.S. Patent Application Publications No. 2012/0203203 (TB 121), No. 2012/0089122 (TB 117), No. 2011/0060309 (TB 108), No. 2011/0152839 (TB 112), and No. 2010/0331770 (TB 101) by TARIS Biomedical Inc. describe various drug delivery devices that provide controlled release of drug from a housing. The device may be free floating in a patient's bladder, yet tolerably and wholly retained in the patient's bladder while locally releasing the drug over an extended period. It would be desirable, however, to provide new designs of intravesical drug delivery devices, and other implantable devices capable of delivering drugs at effective release rates for a range of different drugs.